Tuesday, April 23, 2013

The Posts I Most Wish Official Bloggers Would Write

There seems to have been a terrible row and some very hurt feelings amongst some genealogy bloggers these past few days over what was and wasn't done by Official Bloggers, especially at RootsTech. I'm not going to jump into the fray and speak negatively of anyone. As far as I understand it, the Official Bloggers were never given guidelines, expectations, or criteria of what or how to post or how often to post to their blogs. I trust that all of them shared what they believed would be of most interest or most importance to the genealogy community at large as their time was available to do so. I'm grateful to them. Thank you. Below are my thoughts and hopes about Official Bloggership.

What I Wish Official Bloggers Would Write
Please write a post about the sessions you attended. (For me, what I can learn is the most important aspect of a convention.) If you attend several sessions each day, blogging could become a grueling chore but you
wouldn't have to write or publish all posts on the same day. Those of us who couldn't
attend wouldn't mind having the conference posts extend beyond the last day
of the conference and those who were at the conference may have attended different sessions and may also like to read what you have to say.

In your posts, I wish you would tell me

the name of the session you attended and who presented it.

a brief highlight of the session.

a little more detail about some aspect of the session that was new, helpful, of interest, or especially useful to you.

how you will (or already have) put that information to use.

For those of us unable to attend the conferences, I think this would be greatly appreciated and I don't think it would harm a presenter if only some small aspect of the presentation were shared. Perhaps Official Bloggers could organize together so their posts wouldn't overlap.

I'm on the outside of genealogy conferences, having only ever attended one, and have never been (and probably never will be) an Official Blogger, so maybe I'm missing something -- possibly the busyness and hectic atmosphere of a convention. I'm interested in learning.

My only other thought is a plea for us to be kind-hearted and respectful toward each other. Engendering hurt feelings does nothing to encourage community.

7 comments:

Hi Nancy,My observation of the "Official Bloggers" at the Roots Tech Conference is the description "Cliquish." So the rift among them is not surprising. I do agree with your "I wish they would tell me" list. I will be attending the NGS conference in Las Vegas and I will be observeing the "Official Bloggers".

Renee, For the past two years, NGS has put out an open invitation for all bloggers to register as Official Bloggers for the conference. It appears to be too late now for this year as the link to the sign-up page goes to the list of bloggers but keep an eye out for that in the future. This is the link to the announcement from February — http://conference.ngsgenealogy.org/2013/02/official-genealogy-bloggers-sought-for.html

FGS has asked for Conference Ambassadors which is also open to all bloggers wishing to participate. Details about that are here — https://www.fgsconference.org/media/ambassadors/.

Hello Nancy! Thanks for your comments on this conversation. It helps to know what readers would like to read from conference bloggers. For some time, I've been "covering" most genealogy events I attend by highlighting the sessions I attend. I may not write a detailed report if I see other bloggers doing so, or if the social media coverage seems to catch most of the points. But, most often, I do write a few lines or more as a way of summarizing the presentation for those who might like to know more about the speaker or the topic.

I'm finding the current discussion about the obligations of "official" bloggers very interesting, and wrote a more detailed response on my blog earlier this week. It seems unfortunate that what is intended as a helpful sidebar to events has become a point of contention. Your last sentence is well said.

My comments are posted at http://www.thefamilycurator.com/home/2013/4/22/its-official-clark-kent-and-lois-lane-are-on-the-job.html

Nancy, Thank you. This post is exactly the type of material that needs to come out of this conversation regarding "Official Bloggers." NGS 2013 in Vegas will be my first experience in this role, as part of a team of bloggers over at The In-Depth Genealogist. One of our ideas was to actually invite our readers to submit suggestions - just like this one - of what they want to see us blog about. I very much appreciate the insight. I have a new goal in mind for my share of the conference blogging, thanks to you. I, too, am following this issue closely, and responded as well to the "tiff" (you can see my comments here: http://www.theindepthgenealogist.com/?p=6472), and am curious to see how this will play out over the course of the next couple months of "conference season." In the spirit of collaboration, I'll be sharing your post on the NGS Bloggers page on Facebook, which I would invite you to join, also (not just "Official" bloggers, but all bloggers interested in the conference: https://www.facebook.com/groups/246193758858054/). I am hoping that many more people will read this. All conference bloggers, I hope, have a goal of providing useful and interesting commentary to their readers. I certainly hope I do not disappoint. Thank you so much, ~ Jen Baldwin

Nancy, Congratulations on making Randy's list this week. When I read it a few days ago, I thought, "Yes, she thinks like me" but you have a much better way of putting your thoughts on paper. I 'm glad you took your own stand on this issue and blogged about it. Good for you!

Nancy, I appreciate your comments and agree about bloggers blogging about the sessions they attended. I think this would be good publicity for the conference and future conferences. Wouldn't the conference hosts want this?

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About Me

Sometimes I want to jump back in time, into the lives of my ancestors. Not to stay, of course -- too many modern conveniences I'd rather not do without -- but to meet them and watch their interactions with each other. Since I can't do that, I spend time learning about them and the times in which they lived. I look forward to meeting them. I've been seriously searching for my ancestors for nearly 8 years. I plan to continue indefinitely.
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